“We’ll have thee, as our rare monsters are,
painted on a pole,
and under it here
may you see the tyrant.”
– William Shakespeare Macbeth, Act 5, Scene 8.
A review: Night of Power: The Betrayal of the Middle East by Robert Fisk.
I will start this review at the chapter titled “Dear Moussa..” because it is about the Arab Spring coming to Bahrain. Coincidentally, at that time I interviewed a senior nurse who was attacked by the Bahraini police in Manama at the Pearl Roundabout. The account given by Robert Fisk, as they say: ‘spoke to me’. Robert Fisk put the event this way:
“Nor were Western leaders calling for the overthrow of the autocrat who ran Bahrain, a king who insisted on being addressed as His Majesty, even though his pocket-sized Emirate was more than 2000 times smaller than Libya. Nor was NATO about to defend unarmed demonstrators, who were at the mercy of the local king’s police and soldiers. They were Shiites confronted by a monarch representing a Sunni minority, and while Libya now lay open to anarchy and the West’s greed, King Hamad bin Iza Al Khalifa of Bahrain had an insurance policy that any Arab nation might envy, a guarantee of its little kingdom, from its Sunni Saudi neighbors, a headquarters for the U.S. Fifth Fleet, with more than 4000 American military personnel, and a base for the Royal Navy. This was not the moment for Obama’s liberalism and Cameron’s moral triumphalism to hinder the suppression of Shiite Bahrainis demanding freedom. A 70% majority, whose sympathetically, and then only notionally, was Iran.
And further on, “then the soldiers suddenly started shooting. One was firing a machine gun from the top of a personnel carrier. There were police, but they just left as the soldiers shot at us, but you know, the people in Bahrain have changed. They didn’t want to run away. They faced the bullets with their bodies.”
According to Bob Fisk’s account, this happened outside the Salmania Medical Complex on the 18th of March, 2011. He faithfully gives the account of a hospital orderly: “The protests now occurring at the hospital had already drawn in 1000s of Shiites, including hundreds of doctors and nurses from all over Bahraini capital of Manama, still in their white gowns, but their anger turned to near hysteria when the dying and wounded were now brought in, up to 100 doctors had crowded into the emergency rooms, shouting and cursing their king and their government, as paramedics fought to push trolleys loaded with the latest victims through screaming crowds, one man had a thick wad of bandages stuffed into his chest, but blood was already staining his torso, running down his dreams, jeans, dripping off the trolley, he has a live round in his chest, and now there is air and blood in his lungs. The nurse beside him shouted at me amid the confusion. I think he is going. “
The account given by Robert Fisk was very similar to that given to me by the head of the Bahraini Nurses Federation in 2012. Earlier on in the chapter, Fisk describes the Arab Spring: “The sun shone blood red over the Middle East in February 2012. The earthquake of the past year had been the most tumultuous political experience since the fall of the Ottoman Empire. The docile, supine, cringing Arabs of Orientalism had transformed themselves into fighters for the freedom, liberty, and dignity which we Westerners had always assumed it was our unique role to play in the world.
Suffice it to say, it is very hard to understand the region and the wars that have afflicted West Asia for so long at the hands of the West, it is very hard to understand without the independent journalism that Robert Fisk represents in both this book and in his previous book, The Great War for Civilization. I commend any person interested in opposing Israel’s genocide in Gaza and in Lebanon to read both these books.
Sadly, after 40 or so years reporting on the Middle East, Robert Fisk died before the completion of this book. Fortuneately his wife, Nelofa Pazira-Fisk, finished the task. For this we should be grateful for it reveals so much across the region.
From the Arab uprisings and the Syrian civil war to Israel’s conflicts with Palestine and Lebanon, Fisk condemns the West’s ongoing hypocrisy and interference, while revealing the horrific truth of life on the ground, unafraid to criticize authority and unpick complex truths. Fisk creates a compelling narrative of passionate and engaging journalism, historical analysis, and eyewitness reporting. It comes close to prophecy.
Robert Fisk passed away on the 30th of October, 2020, just three years prior to Israel’s genocide in Gaza and the subsequent United States war of aggression against Iran,This promises to bring down the world economy if it persists.Robert Fisk passed away on the 30th of October, 2020, just three years prior to Israel’s genocide in Gaza and the subsequent United States war of aggression against Iran,This promises to bring down the world economy if it persists.
The book is available in Brisbane City Council libraries.
Ian Curr
31 July 2026